5-29 & 5-30, Tuesday & Wednesday

Off to DC

Off I went on my short consult.  Only after I got there was I told that the whole trip would be barely 24 hours. If I had known….

I decided to use my jiffy Starbucks card for a Passion Tea before I boarded that arid land of no food or drink — my airplane — and found myself in a crowd of irritated travellers.

I quickly moved away to my gate. I was in the middle seat but my row mates were normal size and my trip was otherwise uneventful. I did get about 4 oz of Diet Coke and a palm full of pretzels. Refreshing.

The Willard Hotel

I was lucky to get a good rate at The Willard.   A lovely, historic hotel one block from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.  This is the view that welcomes you to the hotel.

I was able to check in early and the clerk asked where I was from. When I mentioned Florida she told me about her visit to Tampa in March and then complained about all the Hispanic people down there.  I then noted that the clerk’s name was Gigi Chung.  I decided to let the ironic moment pass.

The Metro

Oh, I forgot to mention I took the Metro over to the Willard.  Now, the Metro is fine but I don’t think it is the preferred transportaton mode for Willard guests.  You’ll why in a second. I waited for the train at the airport.

And was jostled around just like the other passengers.

and was treated to a lovely sunset view from the windows in my room. I’m looking west toward Virginia here.

Went down to the restaurant and who do I see but James Baker , former Secretary of State, former Secretary of the Treasury, former White House Chief of Staff, sitting by the window sipping a drink and reading the new Richard Nixon biography.

Early on Wednesday morning I get a call telling me our schedule has been moved up and we’ll be done by noon.  My plans for another night in the lap of luxury were dashed and I had to reschedule my flight out for today and call Gigi to tell her I was checking out early.  She commiserated  with my return to the land of the Spanish-speakers.

We finished our work on time and I was on a plane at 2:30 back to Florida.  Marian picked me up, we had a beer and a sandwich and then I went home and went to bad early.  I was glad to see Milo and Toby but I did miss that view out my window at the Willard.

5-28, Monday, Memorial Day

After our respective walk and run this morning we didn’t really go out at all. We both caught up on our reading and we watched our Netflix movie.

Memorial Day

The New York Times today ran a picture that seems the perfect symbol of Memorial Day, the day we acknowledge our soldiers who died in military action.  The picture at the bottom of the front page image is a woman visiting the grave of her fiance who died several months ago in Iraq.

Quite a remarkable picture, I think. She lies near her fiance, her head down, her belongings lying near her.  Did she collapse? Did she lie down to be closer to him? Is her head down because she is whispering to him?

The picture evokes the sense of the day, the scale of human loss, the living memory of the dead that still affects the living.

Charles Nelson Reilly

Reilly died on Friday and the New York Times ran his obituary today.  He said that when he died the obits would lead with “Game show guest dies”.  At least in the case of NYT his fear was not confirmed.  Their headline ran Charles Nelson Reilly, Tony-Winning Comic Actor, Dies at 76. Actually, Marian and I remember him primarily from his game show days, but our best memory of his was when he played Jose Chung in an X-Files Episode Jose Chung’s from Outer Space.

This a highly stylized and self-referential story about aliens and Chung’s attempt to get to the bottom of claims of alien experiences. He brilliantly plays an oddball writer and steals every scene.  In memory of his performance we watched the episode. What a great episode — funny, interesting, inventive script, excellent acting.

Netflix Movie We Saw

We watched the 3 hour and 40 minute movie Lagaan today.  It is a Bollywood message movie about bad ‘ole British colonialists and the humble but noble Indian villagers.  The British and Indians play a cricket match to satisfy a bet. It is highly moral story where honor prevails and virtue is rewarded.  It is gorgeously filmed and the specific cultural objects are interesting but the story itself is familiar, a little dull, and extremely long-winded

5-27, Sunday

I walked my new Sunday route this morning. About 3.3 miles.  If I get out early enough I miss any traffic and don’t have to worry about dogs loose in the neighborhood.

After my walk and Marian’s run we headed off to the Metro Diner

The Metro is the quintessential urban diner: noisy and crowded but with lots of character, good food, and fast service.

Book Review in NYT

The New York Times Book Review today looked at a new book about James Dobson, founder and leader of the Family Research Council.

Initially the author of this book had unprecedented access to Dobson and to Dobson’s organization and facilities.  That changed when Dobson learned the title of the book being written about him:  The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning the Culture War by Dan Gilgoff.  The book seems to be a political evaluation of the Christian Right and of Dobson’s own institution.  The general consensus is that the influence of the Christian Right is waning but Dobson and his Council remain quite strong and influential.

Gilgoff cites Karl Rove’s consultation with Dobson about the nomination of Harriett Miers and the fawning letter by Samuel Alito to Dobson upon Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court thanking Dobson for his support as evidence of Dobson’s power.  Concentration of power in any individual’s hands is dangerous.  Power concentrated in the hands of someone living so far towards the edge of the spectrum of political belief is both worrisome and dangerous.  Luckily, lots of people are watching both Dobson’s exercise of political prerogatives and the prerogatives of all ideologues.

Book I’ve Finished

I finished Better, by Atul Gawande last night. A fascinating book written by a surgeon and staff writer for The New Yorker magazine.  He uses medical incidents as a launching point for free-ranging but cogent discussions on medical issues. I describe the book further on the “Books I’ve Read” page.

Other than doing a little cleaning, getting some reading done, and eating on the patio of one of our usual restaurants. Lovely evening to eat outside.

Luckily, we managed to stay downwind of some oaf smoking a smelly cigar.

5-26, Saturday

After our 1.5 hour walk this morning we were off to see the latest version of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Movie We Saw

We went to the 12:20 show of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End . What a godawful, chaotic pottage this was. While the special effects are indeed special, the myriad plotlines, the legion of bad guys which included, let’s see, Davey Jones, Lord Beckett, Barbossa, Captain Sao Feng, among others I can’t remember now, are all attempting to complete unsavory projects. It is hard to keep it all straight.

The Los Angeles Times says

It’s possible that someone, somewhere, has put together a flowchart or diagram tracking the many plots, subplots, digressions, divagations and flights of whimsy in “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” which, depending on your tolerance for Byzantine complication for complication’s sake, might have been alternately titled “At Wit’s End.”

and

“Pirates 3″ demands intimate knowledge of the first two installments, not to mention a sterling memory and attention span. In other words, it pays to be prepared. Seriously, this thing is a stern master — walk in casually off the street and you risk nearly three hours of very high-octane confusion.

Yes, but….this series started out as an aerie comedy. It’s characters are a compilation of exaggerated tics, catalogs of Tourettes Syndrome gestures, over-the-top characterizations with only laughter and entertainment as its goal. Instead we must endure Byzantine complications and need flowcharts to enjoy the high art of hilarity. It just falls flat to me and to Marian as well.

But it was interesting to see Keith Richards playing Will’s father.  A special effect all in itself.  I don’t think he needed as much makeup as the other actors to make him look as though he has had a hard life.

How the Rich Spend Their Summers

Oddly enough the Wall Street Journal ran an article today on how the rich spend their summers (defined as those with a net worth of at least $10 million). WSJ is not talking about their primary constituency? Rather they talk of these deep pockets as somehow separate from thir subscriber base? Wow.

These are not ALL the wealthy added up. Rather, EACH person worth $10 million + will spend $384K on yacht rentals. Lapsing back into their elitist past, WSJ explains the reasonableness of this enormous expense…

which sounds about right, given that big yacht charters can cost $200,000 to $250,000 a week.

Well, yeah.

The paper also goes to the trouble that these people will not be in their kitchen with a rubber mallet knocking out dry wall. Rather….

the rich often are traveling for the season, it is an optimal time to let in the contractors and install that new lap pool or home theater.

Of course.

5-25, Friday

Another in a long line of nice days: moderate temps, low humidity, no rain. The last appreciable rain was on May 17 (half an inch), the last before that was May 9 (third of an inch). We’ve had about half the rain the thirty-year average says we are supposed to have.

Drought

If you look at the University of Nebraska’s drought monitor you can see how severe this dry spell is getting.

The table on the left documents how this drought is becoming progressively worse. Two-thirds of the state currently is in severe drought. But it is a good time to be outside.

Wall Street Journal Editorial Page

Amongst liberal readers of the Wall Street Journal, the paper’s editorial page is at odds with the rest of the paper. While its reporters approach issues objectively and report on a full range of economic and social issues, always with lively writing and with the aim of fully appreciating the value of the story.

The editorial page, on the other hand, tends to reflect the values of the economic elite and deep-pocket corporate owners. The editors rail against most modern trends and criticize any perceived challenge to the privileges of the plutocracy.

So imagine my surprise when I see National Review Online criticize the smug rich-guy arrogance on display on the pages of the editorial section. These arrogant elites are out in the open, brazen and unashamed…

the Wall Street Journal editorial conference…. I was… well, no, not foaming at the mouth, but gaping in wonder at such a concentration of smug rich-guy arrogance on display all in one place. What color is the sky in these guys’ world?… [As far as] blithe indifference to actual human nature, but Gigot & Co. take the biscuit. It’s pretty routine now to mock the WSJ editorial crowd for believing that there is no such thing as a nation, only an economy. Well, there it is. You saw it. That is what they actually, literally believe. We kick around phrases like “arrogant elites” pretty carelessly, but here they are, out in the open, brazen and unashamed…

Stephen Moore’s assertion that we are “foaming at the mouth”… isn’t worth taking seriously. Rather, it’s Gigot’s judgment that the bill is in serious trouble. The Journal-ists… make some dubious factual assertions and mischaracterize some of our views…

I do wish the Wall Street Journal wasn’t so hostile and insulting when talking about us and immigration…. We don’t want legal immigration, WSJ editors explain at their editorial meeting (link is on the opinionjournal site). Yes, out with the Lopezes and Ponnurus and O’Beirnes and O’Sullivans and… immigration is what’s wrong with America. Mark Levin points out, defensively, Paul Gigot says, that he is pro-immigration. Well, duh — he needs to correct the record because you and Bob Novak and other friends are suggesting otherwise.

Well gosh. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

New Yorker Cartoons

One of the many pleasures of reading The New Yorker each week are the cartoons. One in this week’s edition I found especially funny. One of the gifts of their cartoonists is their ability to infuse abstract political or cultural language and concepts into mundane situations. So we have it here just as Congress is passing the Iraq funding legislation and debating what limitations to policy the funding would include.

Ho Ho Ho.

A Different Approach to Divorce

W. D. Snodgrass writes eloquently about benchmarks in marriage and divorce. Snodgrass’ poems inspired confessional poets like Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell. This poem takes on exactly the same issue as The New Yorker cartoon but writes in a very revealing and personal way.

A Locked House

As we drove back, crossing the hill,
The house still
Hidden in the trees, I always thought-
A fool’s fear-that it might have caught
Fire, someone could have broken in.
As if things must have been
Too good here. Still, we always found
It locked tight, safe and sound.

I mentioned that, once, as a joke;
No doubt we spoke
Of the absurdity
To fear some dour god’s jealousy
Of our good fortune. From the farm
Next door, our neighbors saw no harm
Came to the things we cared for here.
What did we have to fear?

Maybe I should have thought: all
Such things rot, fall-
Barns, houses, furniture.
We two are stronger than we were
Apart; we’ve grown
Together. Everything we own
Can burn; we know what counts-some such
Idea. We said as much.

We’d watched friends driven to betray;
Felt that love drained away
Some self they need.
We’d said love, like a growth, can feed
On hate we turn in and disguise;
We warned ourselves. That you might despise
Me-hate all we both loved best-
None of us ever guessed.

The house still stands, locked, as it stood
Untouched a good
Two years after you went.
Some things passed in the settlement;
Some things slipped away. Enough’s left
That I come back sometimes. The theft
And vandalism were our own.
Maybe we should have known.

————-W.D. Snodgrass, “A Locked House” from Selected Poems, 1957-1987

5-24, Thursday

A little muggier and warmer today but cool enough to keep the windows open. Memorial Day is forcast for the high 80s. I think we are almost there.

Books to Review

I’ve been making progress with The New Institutionalism in Education. It is a dense book and has taken me a little time to get through it. The dozen essays in this book contribute to institutionalism theory rather than discuss daily issues in education so I imagine the book won’t appeal to readers interested in contemporary issues in education. So I’m reviewing for a small audience. The review will be in the email soon.

I just received Scale-Up in Education: Ideas in Principle, Volume I. Evidently the authors wish to take examples from other disciplines to seed discussions on education innovations and to borrow novel methods to measure educational improvements. Targeted to a larger audience than the first book, I don’t imagine the authors will be able to eat a double Whopper every day with the royalties from this book.

By the way, these are both very pricey books: the first retailing for $65 and the second for $70. The problems of limited distribution publishing.

BRAINS

For the first time since Marian began receiving their brochures, the school system schedule change beginning this next school year allows her to seriously contemplate attending the seminar Brain Dissection and Neuroscience:Applications to Disorders of Language and Speech Functions .   Each attendee gets their own brain to dissect and a nice lunch every day. Why, here is one right now:

A brain, not lunch.

She is fascinated by neuroanatomy and this would be one of those busman’s holidays where she simply works on an elegant version of the kind of work she does every day.  Not my cup of tea, actually, and I expect her to wash her hands really good when she came back from the seminar.

Busy Summer

I touted up our schedule this summer and I or she or both of us together are very busy this summer.

5/29.  Several days to Washington for a consult

5/31.  Get off the airplane and off to a doctor’s appointment. (sigh)

6/3.   Bloodwork for me and medical consultation for Marian.

6/5.  More doctors for me.

6/8.  One-day course on Dreamweaver.

6/15 One-day course on advanced Dreamweaver

6/18  Off to the mountains for a holiday.

6/20  Digital photography class begins

6/25  Back to Washington for a few days

6/29  Back to the mountains for a few more days

early July.  Marian attends an inclusion conference

7/5  Doctors appointment

7/9  Homeowners conference

7/18  Photoshop course begins

end of July. Marian attends Assistive Technology conference

8/2  Brain Conference for Marian??

Yikes!  When you put it all down it creates quite a little stack of stuff, doesn’t it?

Helpers 

Working on a project the other day I had two helpers, Toby on the left and Milo on the right.  I couldn’t have finished it without their help.

5-23, Wednesday

A warmish day today but still below average. It actually rained today, briefly, not even long enough for me to take a keepsake photo.

Speaking of Photos

I was looking through some of my photos and ran across a couple I really like.

I took this one in the French Quarter long before Katrina. A shotgun house with a piece of corrugated metal painted to look like an American flag.

I liked the contrast between the color of the closed shutters and the wall paint. The red of the flag stripes echoes the shutter color. I liked the general horizontal thrust of the composition and how the flag is framed by the shutters and the inferred roof on top and ground at the bottom.

This row house in the French Quarter is almost entirely hidden by shrubbery. All you really see is the flag and the awnings.

Of course, this picture was taken 5 years ago. I don’t know what it may look like now.

This is a picture of a commercial arcade just outside the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at Lake Las Vegas. Developers had built a faux Mediterranean village in the desert between Las Vegas and Lake Mead. They found a natural bowl in the hills and built this village, sort of encapsulated by the hills on three sides.

I cropped it differently here and saturated the colors a bit in this version.

I don’t know which one I like better. The second is a bit harsher I think.

Lake Las Vegas is one of those commercial projects that speaks to an disproportionate use of scarce resources: a lakeside Mediterranean village with a manmade lake surrounded by verdant golf courses located in a desert where only 7 inches of rain falls each year. Looking at the promotions of Lake Las Vegas you would hardly know that it is located in a region so harsh its residents would parish if they were lost within 20 miles of their home. Any hint of a desert in this promo photo?

or this view of the golf course?

ABC News’ Nightline recently investigated water shortages in Nevada and the problems’ impact on all Nevadans. Everyone else in Nevada will pay the price for those lush greens in the picture above.

C Day Lewis

I see that a new biography of this English poet, former 30s radical and later the UK Poet Laureate, is about to be published in the US (7/14). The biographer evidently echoes modern tastes in biographical details, focusing on Day’s tumultuous love life rather than the merit of his poems, according to The Times Literary Supplement.

He became rather staid in his poetry in his later years, as this poem shows. It is a fine poem in its way but uninspiring. Lewis asks the reader perhaps what he asks himself about this poem, who wants truth in such everyday wear?

View From An Upper Window

From where I am sitting, my windowframe
Offers a slate roof, four chimneypots,
One aerial, half of a leafless tree,
And sky the colour of dejection. I could
Move my chair; but London being
What it is, all would look much the same
Except that I’d have the whole of that tree.
Well, window, what am I meant to do
With the prospect you force me to dwell upon – this tame
And far from original aperçu?

I might take the picture for what it can say
Of immediate relevance – its planes and tones,
Though uninspiring, significant because
Like history they happened to happen that way.
Aerial, chimneypots, tree, sky, roof
Outline a general truth about towns
And living together. It should be enough,
In a fluctuating universe, to see they are there
And, short of an atom bomb, likely to stay.
But who wants truth in such everyday wear?

Shall I, then, amplify the picture? track
The roof to its quarry, the tree to its roots,
The smoke just dawdling from that chimneystack
To the carboniferous age? Shall I lift those slates
And disclose a man dying, a woman agape
With love? Shall I protract my old tree heavenwards,
Or set these aerial antennae to grope
For music inaudible, unborn yet? But why,
If one’s chasing the paradigm right forward and back,
Stop at embryo, roots or sky?

Perhaps I should think about the need for frames.
At least they can lend us a certain ability
For seeing a fragment as a kind of whole
Without spilling over into imbecility.
Each of them, though limited its choice, reclaims
Some terra firma from the chaos. Who knows? –
Each of us may be set here, simply to compose
From a few grains of universe a finite view,
By One who occasionally needs such frames
To look at his boundless creation through.